By IANS,
Agartala : Security forces in Tripura have rescued a railway engineer from the custody of tribal separatists after 40 days in captivity, officials said here Friday.
A police spokesman said there was heavy exchange of fire Thursday between Tripura State Rifles (TSR) personnel and militants of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) at Champahower, 122 km north of here.
“After a 40-minute gunfight with the TSR, the militants fled and we rescued the railway engineer Debabrata Das,” said police spokesman Nepal Das.
After killing a railway worker, NLFT rebels kidnapped Das while he was supervising railway construction works at Tuikarma in western Tripura April 26. Das hails from Hailakandi in Assam.
Meanwhile, 16 NLFT militants surrendered before security forces in Tripura Thursday.
The tribal separatists fled their hideout at Chittagong hill tracts of southeast Bangladesh and decided to surrender, a state government official said.